


The Harbor

by CarbonInsolence



Series: Life In Grey [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Ballerina Louis, Cheating, Divorce, F/M, M/M, Model Harry, Past-Anorexia, Stupid people doing stupid things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-09 17:29:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3258308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarbonInsolence/pseuds/CarbonInsolence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's two years since Louis married Zayn. Now all he has is a hefty divorce fee and a diamond ring which he probably shouldn't be wearing any more. What's worse is watching his old ex, Harry playing happy families with his new husband and baby. What's even worse than that are his growing realizations that he's made some very very poor decisions in his life.</p><p>This is the multi-chaptered sequel to my short fic 'Life in Grey' but it can be read on it's own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Harbor

**Author's Note:**

> This is the sequel to my short fic 'Life in Grey' but it can be read on it's own, or you can go and read 'Life in Grey' (it's only short). Either way I've made this pretty easy to understand.

Louis Tomlinson, Moore Park Estate, London

It’s one of the hardest phone calls that he’s ever had to make because he knows how his Mum will react. After her experiences she would have expected her son to learn from her. He’s very aware that this is going to make him the family fuck up again after he had thought he’d redeemed himself. His distant cousins will be able to point at him and say ‘well at least I haven’t messed up as bad as him’ to their parents. His grandma will give him that snide look except this time she’ll have a reason to be snide. His sisters will give him that look of pity.

It’s his step-dad who picks up the phone. ‘Louis,’ he says. ‘Good of you to call.’

‘Hi,’ Louis says. ‘Is mum there?’

‘Yeah,’ his step dad says. ‘Give me a second to get her.’

Louis hears him shout her name. ‘She’s just coming Louis,’ his step-dad says. ‘I’ll pass you over.’

‘Hello Louis,’ His mum says down the line. ‘How’re you?’

‘Um,’ Louis pauses. ‘Not so good.’

‘What’s wrong?’ she asks. Louis can hear the concern in her voice and he feels his guilt rise.

‘Zayn and I just got back from the lawyers,’ Louis says down the phone.

‘What’s happened?’ she says. ‘You’re alright aren’t you?’

‘Um,’ Louis rubs his forehead. ‘No, no. We um, we filed for divorce.’

There’s dead silence down the phone. It’s deafening.

‘Mum?’ Louis says when the silence has gone on for way to long.

It’s a couple of seconds before she says anything. ‘But you were happy. You wanted to adopt.’

‘Yeah,’ Louis says. ‘I know.’

‘Are you sure?’ his Mum says. ‘This isn’t something that you want to rush.’

‘We’ve been talking about it for a while now,’ Louis says. ‘We had… we had a problem and we decided to give it time and time just hasn’t fixed anything.’

‘You’ve only been married for two years,’ his mum says. ‘Only been together for four.’

Louis doesn’t say anything because he knows. It’s so stupid. He feels so stupid. The press are going to give him hell for being one half of one of those short ridiculous celebrity marriages.

‘Well have you tried marriage counselling,’ his mum suggests. ‘I hear that’s quite good for-’

‘Well did you try marriage counselling?’ Louis snaps because really, obviously he had tried everything. He didn’t want this.

‘I’m sorry,’ his mum says.

‘No,’ Louis shakes his head. ‘No, I’m sorry.’

There both silent again for a second.

‘I didn’t want this,’ he says.

‘I know, I know love,’ his mum says. ‘Would you like to come home for a while?’

Louis shakes his head. ‘No,’ he says down the phone. ‘I have practice every day this week. I’m fine, really. It’s been coming for a while now. I’m not surprised.’

‘Okay love,’ she says. ‘Okay, I’ll see you soon.’

‘Yeah’ Louis says. ‘See you.’

He hangs up and sits cross legged on his bed for a while.

Zayn comes upstairs about ten minutes later.

‘Hey,’ he says and loiters at the door. ‘Can I come in?’

‘Well it’s your bedroom too,’ Louis says.

Zayn smiles sadly at that and Louis budges up to make space on the bed.

They sit in silence for a while.

‘Who’d have thought it huh,’ Louis says after a while. ‘Around this time two years ago we were on a honeymoon. Now I’m twenty-three years old and already divorced.’

Zayn sighs. ‘It’s odd how things work isn’t it.’

Louis shrugs.

‘I’m leaving in a minute,’ Zayn says.

‘For Perries’?’ Louis says stupidly even though he already knows.

‘Yeah,’ Zayn says. ‘Look, Perrie wanted me to tell you that she’s not taking sides or anything. It’s just that I was roommates with her before so it makes sense-’

‘Maybe she should tell me that herself,’ Louis says.

Zayn blinks at him and looks for a second like he’s going to argue back but decides against it.

‘They’re all still going to be your friends Louis. Perry, Jessy, Michael and that lot they’ll still be your friends’ he says quietly.

‘Okay,’ Louis says. ‘Except for the fact that they were your friends first. I didn’t have friends. Well I had Harry and Niall, but we both know how that went so-’

‘They like you Louis.’

‘Okay Zayn,’ Louis says shaking his head. He doesn’t doubt that. It’s just that they’ve known Zayn for so long, and when two of your friends divorce it’s only natural to take sides. And let’s be honest it’s not like they’re going to take the side of an airhead ballerina who didn’t even finish school over a friend they’ve had for nearly a decade now. So not only is he getting divorced, but he’s also going back to the days when he didn’t really have anyone.

Zayn’s phone buzzes before he can reply. ‘That’s the taxi,’ he says.

‘You know Greg could just have driven you,’ Louis says.

Zayn looks uncomfortable. ‘I don’t really think he’s my biggest fan right now,’ he says.

Of course. Because while Greg’s only his driver, he’s always been fiercely loyal to Louis

Zayn gets of the bed. ‘Well,’ he says. ‘I’ll see you round.’

Louis doesn’t look up from where he’s playing with his toes and practicing his pointe technique. Really, what do you say to your soon to be ex-husband when he’s moving out? I’ll miss you? I’m sorry we’ll never get to have that baby together? Sorry for wasting four years of your life?

‘Alright,’ he decides on. ‘See you.’

‘Call me when the lawyer gets back to you,’ Zayn says.

‘Okay,’ Louis replies.

Zayn stands there for a second clearly not knowing what to say.

‘Right,’ he opens the door to the bedroom. ‘Bye.’

Louis still doesn’t look up. ‘Bye.’

A second later the door to the bedroom shuts and a minute after that he hears the front door shut.

Louis twiddles with the wedding ring on his finger that he still hasn’t taken off. He’ll do it when the marriage is legally over he decides.

He sits on his bed in a mansion in Moore Park far too big for one person amongst the remnants of his marriage.

Alone again.

-

Nick Grimshaw, Primrose Hill, London

The baby’s crying again.

Nick groans against the pillow, because really? Again? What could she possibly want now?

He hears the boy next to him stir and sit up slightly to look at him. ‘It’s your turn babe,’ Harry says before collapsing back onto the pillow exhausted.

‘I have work tomorrow,’ Nick says.

Harry looks over to him with a pissed expression on his face. ‘So do I,’ he says. ‘What? Do you think looking after a ten month old baby who doesn’t even sleep through the night yet is easy?’

‘Well it’s not something which takes a lot of brain power is it?’ Nick hisses. ‘I actually have to go to central and talk on the radio for four hours.’

Harry stares at him for a second before throwing off the bed sheets and sighing dramatically. ‘Fine. I’ll do it. Since I seem to be the only one who cares enough to look after our daughter.’

Harry storms out of bed and flicks the baby monitor off. The crying can only be heard from the nursery now.

‘Is that better for you? More quiet?’ Harry hisses. ‘I wouldn’t want our baby do disturb your precious sleep.’

‘Babe-’ Nick says but Harry’s already stormed out of the room to attend to Amelia’s needs.

Nick falls back against the pillow and sighs. He needs sleep. He’d been warned that having a baby would be hard, but he never realised it would be this difficult. He desperately needs sleep. More than that he desperately needs Harry. The stress of the baby’s drawn them apart slightly. They haven’t had sex in over ten months. He knows it’ll get better but he misses Harry so much even though he’s right there.

Harry crawls into bed again ten minutes later. He lies on his side facing away from Nick.

‘Hey,’ Nick says kissing him on his neck and pulling him close. ‘Let me keep you warm.’

Harry pushes him away. ‘Stop it, Nick,’ he says before turning back onto his side away from him. ‘Maybe we can spoon when you decide to participate more as a father, but until then-’

Harry grabs one of the unused pillows and shoves it in between them. ‘-don’t come on my side of the bed.’

Nick wants to protest and reach out to hold him, but he knows it’ll get him even more annoyed. It’s so hard having Harry so close to him, yet so far. He sighs and closes his eyes to catch a couple of hours of sleep.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :) It would be great to hear from you guys!


End file.
